chiron Archives - ROXANNA BIKADOROFF

February 26, 2021April 10, 2024

Moon Sign Musings

It’s a Full Moon in Virgo, trining Uranus in Taurus. The Moon holds memories and Uranus can bring up very distant ones, from past lifetimes, but also future or parallel lives, since Uranus is not bound by Saturn timelines. Taurus is romantic, loves ancestry and Virgo loves to record and categorize. So let’s gaze into the crystal, Full Moon ball for clues to each sign’s lunar history…

Moon in Aries

Moon of mythic heroes and epic, battle sagas.
Yours is an ancient soul lineage of indigenous warriors or Amazons, thus combat is in your blood and likely your mother’s.
Patrick Henry’s immortal slogan, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” was first uttered on March 23, 1775, Aries season.
In Valhalla (Old Norse: Valhöll – “hall of the slain”), the Moon is always in Aries. Valkyries are your guardian angels.
You are nurtured by taking initiative, protecting life and being honored for your deeds.

Moon in Taurus

Crescent Moon, crescent horns of an Egyptian Bull

The Hathor Moon of milk and honey, that which the sacred cow jumped over. When people say ‘as old as the Moon’ they are talking about the Taurus Moon.
When the sensual, hoofed beauties of the first lunar calendars were painted in caves, to when the first Goddess temples were built, to the Golden Age of Egypt, you were there, worshiping and being worshiped. But your one, constant temple is nature itself.
You are nurtured by gentle breezes carrying the scent of Spring green, good food and sound sleeps.

Moon in Gemini

The Bardic Moon, the inconstant Moon of Romeo and Juliet and Courtly Love. By listening intently to the chattering of birds, you developed language, and later, writing, in order to describe the complexities of human emotion.
Like Cyrano, your words were often commissioned by enamored knights, to whom you generously offered delivery service. Your (in)famous dexterity was honed picking chastity belt locks by candlelight.
You are nurtured by your other half and by imagining things into being.

Moon in Cancer

The Moon of the Great Mother Ocean, conductor of tidal movements and the cycles of rebirth.
Also the keeper of memories, hence Mnemosyne, mother of the 9 Muses.
Yours is a matriarchal cult that precedes temples, when Lucy walked the shores of Africa, nursing Monkey Jesus. You’ve never forgotten a single one of your infinite children (or loves) and hug them all to your breast, when full.
You are nurtured when cooking soul food for your tribe and by being in sync with the colour of your moods.

Moon in Leo

The Dramatic Moon, Cybele’s Moon.
In the Mountain Lion Mother’s temple, you took part in orgiastic rituals, as her half-wild attendants beat drums and danced, while ecstatic devotees offered their self-severed testicles.
You have never forgotten such scenes of devotion, and, while you don’t expect blood offerings these days, you’d still appreciate the occasional drum roll, upon entering a room, thank you very much.
You are nurtured by the self-confidence you feel when giving and receiving creative encouragement.

Moon in Virgo

The Isis or Holy Mother Moon, Moon of witches, healers and midwives.
In the distant past, some of you were responsible for keeping records, including the cycles, names and many uses of plants, others, for libations and purification rituals. Later, in the age of ‘enlightenment’, the first group went on to study medicine, while the others chose a life of the cloth, continuing to serve the Holy Mother, under a different guise.
You still like pure food and being on both first and Latin name terms with the plants in your garden, where you are nurtured and grounded by making improvements…so your cats say.

Moon in Libra

The Manna Moon, and Moon of Temperance.
Your lineage introduced the concept of ‘fairness’ as well as the legalities around trade, marriage and other civilities, based on what was later understood as karma, or, in olde Egypt, the Weighing of Hearts.
Ever since your Greek days, you have been dividing the Gods and Goddesses of your psyche, assigning to each a chord or rhythm and trying different combinations, listening carefully for harmony and discord. You are nurtured by finding the harmonic ones, in all areas of life.

Moon in Scorpio

Hekate’s Moon, Moon of sorcery and shamanic healing.
The casting and removal of hexes is in your soul lineage.
In your own illness, you flew to the land of the dead and back, thus were selected to preside over this transition – be it by returning there, entranced, to retrieve lost souls, preparing the dead, or guiding the deceased towards rebirth.
The elite of your tribe wrote the manuals (The Tibetan and Egyptian Books, for example), while those on the ground practiced midwifery or donned the anonymous, black hood. Residual, last words of the condemned still echo, occasionally, so these days you try to focus on the rebirth part.
Nocturnal animals are your familiars and deep, healing love, your nurturing tonic.

Moon in Sagittarius

The Artemis-Diana Moon, former gypsy, nomad, traveler, with lifetimes of stories to draw from.
You are a semi-retired Sindbad who continues armchair time-traveling to communicate with yourself, in long ago and far away places.
Like Chiron, you are nurtured by nature, freedom and independence, as well as learning and seeking. “Don’t fence me in” is your motto, yet you ultimately seek that place to call home.
You forgive but you don’t forget, because why would you leave out any part your life’s novel ?

[My own lineage, Moon of my mother, both maternal grandparents, aunt and some of my cousins on her side, as well as my paternal grandfather and aunt!]

Moon in Capricorn

The Druid Moon or Pan Moon, the old, wise one, behind the scenes power mover, shaker, money maker, who knows the inner workings of the outer world and how to keep persona and personal separate.
Like your Stonehenge ancestors, you rarely, if ever, divulge your secrets, and distrust all sycophants or anyone offering a free lunch, for that matter.
Somewhere in your past, you were the scapegoat, and that fear still haunts your memory.
You are nurtured by the finer things in life and may have a dark or gallows sense of humour.

Moon in Aquarius

The cosmic crystal (frozen fire) Moon, holding all the resonance codes of creation.
In your telepathic lineage, communication is equal between all lifeforms. You may be/have been one of the extra-terrestrials advancing our technology in preparation for the Aquarian Age.
You have emotions, it’s just that you find them too heavy for communicating through time and space and one can’t bend spoons with them. Also, because electricity travels faster and is more deadly in water, you are wary of electrocuting others should your emotions get the better of you.
You are nurtured by freeing minds.

Moon in Pisces

The Mystic Moon, where imposed, grid time and other boundaries seem like drag nets.
Long ago, when the water dried up and left you in the middle of a desert, you began walking (or dancing) the mystical path, in bare feet and have never stopped.
Nurtured by that which glimmers, you understand we are living in an illusion, but most people don’t know how to and you can’t bear to watch them suffer. You are frequently late, since your clock is melting and crawling with ants, but the love you give more than makes up for it.

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Written content copyright © Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reproduced in full or in part without permission.
Kindly share via link only. Thank you.

July 14, 2019April 5, 2024

Saturn on a Sunday

Saturn has been coming up as a topic for me, during this Mercury retrograde, I guess because of age, but also I have Saturn in the 3rd house, sexile my own Rx Mercury. Also it is my late father’s birthday, today. [Serendipitously, as I was writing this piece, some people began singing happy birthday, next door.]

Saturn can represent the father, or parent/grandparent/teacher that first enforces structure in our lives. I say ‘enforces’ because we have no choice in the matter. This can be for our protection, but it can also be to control us with or repress our natural expression, so, as we grow, we seek to redefine this outer structure that we didn’t create. Sometimes the repression can be quite severe, but Saturn is also the ‘karma lord,’ so somehow, somewhere, we must have had a hand in it and needed the lesson, if only to rebel against and thereby grow into ourselves.

The first Saturn return (around age 29) is often difficult because, though it is usually defined as our first ‘true’ initiation into adulthood, reality and responsibility, our unconscious urges are to break out of any left-over, imposed structure not of our own creation, that we have spent our teens and 20s rebelling against.

So part of us may still be modelling our ‘adult’ self on the old blueprints and part of us seeks to continually redraw them until we come up with something more authentic. (We may have had kids prior to the first Saturn return and discovered we ‘turned into our parents’ along the way). Usually by the second Saturn return we have had some TIME and experience to soul-search and let go of definitions that no longer apply to who we are, often during the ‘mid life crisis’ that is the Uranus opposition and Chiron return.

Aki Inomata hermit crab glass cathedral shell (photo from Fast Company)

It reminds me of the hermit crab (since we’re in Cancer season), who has to keep changing shells as it outgrows the old one, but who always needs a shell to protect it’s soft body. Sometimes it’s new shell is not a shell, but whatever material it finds fitting.
Saturn’s cycles are in sync with the progressed Moon’s, as well as the lunar nodes’ which makes sense, since these represent instinct, the soul urge/potential, emotional body, memory, etc.

In Tarot, the Tower is the old structure that is struck down, thereby releasing the prisoners. It is often associated with Uranus. Indeed, Uranus is the first planet situated beyond the boundaries of Saturn (Chiron orbits between the two and has been called the ‘Rainbow Bridge’). As 16, it is a ‘1/4’ card (every 4th card is also the 1st card of a new cycle of 3, thus having to do with change/transition, death and rebirth). This type of change is a blow, shock or awakening from without (well, the lightening is attracted to certain structures for a reason).
In the Moon card, we see two, less imposing towers, with an opening in between, for the soul’s watery emergence. They may well be bridge towers. The Moon is a ‘3’ card (a womb for new creative potential, from which the next cycle is born). Since the Moon controls the tides of life, and the body of water that provides it, we can equate this with the soul forming and reshaping matter. Just look at beach glass, driftwood, etc. This type of change is a slow, but synchronized metamorphosis from within, that can be quite mysterious.

Saturn ultimately knows that in time, all structures will be changed, somehow. But the key word here is TIME. Patience, continued effort…there are no mistakes, no punishment, it’s all a process of becoming.

WW2 Defense Barrier with new graffiti, London [photo © Kevin Harrison]

Meanwhile, Neptune in Pisces tides are wearing down our old preconceptions and washing away the footprints in the sand left by the Piscean Age. Things are cracking open. The Earth itself is changing, her waters rising, her crust shifting. It’s up to each and every one of us to use this opportunity to create new space for becoming who we really are, from within. Only we can change ourselves so that the old structures have no foundation to be re-built on.

All written content herein is copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reposted or reprinted without permission plus a credit and a link to this page. You may share via link. Thank you for being respectful.

February 3, 2012November 20, 2023

MYSTICAL PATH, PRACTICAL FEET – Virgo’s Household Cleaning Tips for Neptune in Pisces

Neptune re-entered it’s own sign of Pisces today, home for the next 13 years. This icy, mysterious, blue planet, where it supposedly rains diamonds, is called the ‘higher octave’ of Venus. It is the eighth and/or ninth planet from the Sun, depending on Pluto’s orbital position. Dreams, illusions, art (especially film, music, dance), healing, universal love, psychic ability, phobias and mind-altering drugs are some of the areas Neptune presides over. Modern astrologers recognize it as a fitting replacement for Pisces’ traditional ruler, Jupiter.

Neptune is currently conjunct ‘the wounded healer’ asteroid, Chiron, named after the centaur who learned and taught healing as a result of his non-healing wound. In a chart, Chiron’s placement shows where you become your own medic through your pain – the wound and healing are one. In Pisces, it is truly shamanic. Chiron prefers holistic methods and is where we get the word ‘chiropractor.’ Many astrologers associate it with the sign of Virgo.

Virgo is also the polar opposite sign of Pisces. Where Pisces is dreamy and escapist, Virgo is practical and, literally, ‘down to Earth’. We think of her simply as ‘the Virgin’, but she is also depicted as a winged figure – the angel of earthly service. (Her Vestal Virgin persona seems more in keeping with the asteroid, Vesta, who is also transiting Pisces right now). Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the winged messenger planet.

I had declared in my Dec 21/11 post (Fish Have Left the Building) that we’d officially kissed the Pisces Age good-bye. But of course, after living in a house for two-thousand-some-odd years, there’s a ton of cleaning to do before you can actually leave the premises…otherwise, you will certainly not get your damage deposit back ! A final purge of the old dream’s residue needs doing, to prepare the space for creating a big, fabulous, magical, Water-Dragony, new one. Neptune in Pisces, along with Chiron, is the final rinse and purification team.
Virgo has our best (and cleanest) interests at heart, so I’ve invoked her to provide some practical tips on cleansing with Neptune energy. Try to come up with your own ideas, too, since you are the instigator of your own process – your own shaman. Start now, sparkle by Spring !

Cleansing the physical body

1 – Eliminate or at least drastically cut down on red meat, processed foods, wheat, sugar, dairy, fats, yeast and fermented foods, alcohol, coffee, fried stuff, too much salt and anything else that potentially creates blockage and toxicity. Fast for a day or three if you can. Take a probiotic daily to replace friendly bacteria. Psyllium seed husks, bentonite clay and vitamin C can also help. And whatever it takes, if you are a smoker, it is definitely time to quit, now. My Virgo neighbour just resumed smoking after a year and is very sick, as a result.

2 – Increase your water intake. Consider investing in an ionizing water filter to increase alkalinity. A pinch of baking soda per 2 litres of water is the no-frills method (this will not filter or ionize, however). Bless your water before drinking.

3 – Eat more raw foods, vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, legumes and whole grains (Virgo is also the grain Goddess, after all). Oatmeal, gentle enough to slough your skin, has the same loofa effect on the inside. Mother Nature really does know best !

4 – Go organic wherever possible and eat frequent, small meals rather than few, large ones, which is probably how my double Virgo grandmother lived to be nearly 100. It’s always best to get your vitamins directly from the source, so a juicer is also a good investment.

5 – Be kind to your heart, liver and the rest of the organ gang. If it’s not a matter of life and death, replace pharmaceutical drugs/pills with home remedies (Virgo’s fave) like chamomile or mint tea for tummy aches, clove for tooth aches, water for headaches (they are often caused by dehydration), etc. When detoxing, headaches are normal – just keep flushing. Music and water sounds can work wonders for healing under the Neptune/Pisces influence. And don’t worry about common colds – it’s nature’s way of purging the system. Drink lots of fluids.

6 – Put sea salt in your bath to draw out toxins and relax muscles.

7 – Your body is a mini Earth ! Replace all toxic chemical cleaners/detergents in your home with ones that will not pollute your own waters or the ocean’s. Chemicals burn the skin right off marine beings, kill coral reefs. Use baking soda and vinegar or chlorine-free oxygen bleach for sinks, drains, floors, tubs. Cream of tartar for tea and coffee stains. Steamers are great for sterilizing counter tops, gyms, restaurants, etc. [Addendum 2020: it is not known whether steam alone will kill covid-19, so it is recommended to scrub surfaces with soapy water then steam while still soapy. Hydrogen peroxide or isopropyl alchohol (never mix anything with HP) are good ‘pure’ sterilizers. Fatty soaps rather than ones containing astringent or bacterial killing agents work best for hand washing.]
Think, what would your grandmother/great grandmother have used before we had all this chemical goop ? Romans bathed with olive oil and salt, the purest soap is still made from these simple ingredients.

Virgo oversees the digestive tract and it’s link with the nervous system, via her Mercury rulership. Our digestive tract, colon, etc. are directly affected by nerves. And because our bodies are not only divided down the middle vertically, but horizontally as well, intestines and brains are not that different. In fact the intestinal tract is known as ‘the second brain’ and gets information before the brains in our head. They both get full of shit and need to be emptied, cleansed and well taken care of for proper function of everything else. A Polish senior I know told me her mother would always advise her not to make a decision to act before “eat and poop”. In other words, the processing time of one meal = the time needed for mental process !

But don’t just take my word for it :
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-brain

Spring Clean Early

It certainly feels like spring is already starting in some places, which must be a call to begin the house cleaning/clearing. The key lesson for Pisces, junk collector of the zodiac, is ‘un-attachment.’ Sometimes Pisces has an easier time un-attaching itself from people than objects or photos that conjure memories of them.
If you are in the late forties – early fifties age group, any old illusions of yourself in the form of clothing or ‘stuff’ should probably be sent down the river at this point.

And of course…washing, especially windows, for clear vision.
Virgo Moon says, use cleaning as practical magic, ‘wash that man right out of your hair’ while shampooing, for example.

Cleanse the emotional body

Ritual, no matter how small, is a great way to inform the inner and outer universe of your intention. Virgo loves writing lists to draw things from memory, so we can use this as a format.
We’ve all had people in our lives who have influenced us strongly, for better or worse. Everyone you’ve shared a soul connection with, you’ve actually exchanged bits of yourself for theirs. While we can’t erase memories, we can neutralize their effects.

1- Make lists of all the soul connections you are finished with – one for lovers or significant others, one for teachers, one for neighbours, adversaries or whoever you feel ready to let go of. It may take a few days. They will start popping up in dreams or elsewhere.

2 – Get some matches.

3 – Take the lists to a beach or other moving body of water. Thank the people on your first list for their lesson and inform them that you are now giving back the parts of them you’ve been holding and are taking back the parts of yourself from them. Roll or fold up the list, burn it, and let the charred remains fall into the moving water. Repeat with each list. (If you have no access to moving water, you can release into the wind or bury them in the earth – a return to the elements is the main thing). The New Moon is a good time to do this. For heavier bonds, you may wish to write a letter to the person (not to mail) or do a more involved ritual. The important thing is your intent. This should be an act of gratitude and closure, not destruction. You will feel lighter afterwards !

Neptune’s dreamscape and Virgo’s analytical ability are also very conducive for dream interpretation/therapy. What is your emotional body and unconscious telling you ? Keeping a dream journal and rendering your dreams in some art form are routes to self-healing.

Mental cleansing

Everyone will have their own methods for this, such as meditation or yoga… but since water is the main element right now, I recommend walking by the water to clear the mind, or at least out in nature, a park, etc. Listen to/walk in the rain or get a water cd and visualize the water flowing through your brain and rinsing away all debris.

One good way to un-clutter and calm the third eye is to sleep with a smooth slab of (cleansed) lapis between the eyebrows. This also helps with headaches, eye strain and vertigo. Rinse it under cold, running water from time to time, to release build-up.

Energetic/spiritual cleansing

There is so much invisible, electro-magnetic, microwave, electrical pollution these days, and it’s on the increase. Cell phones, computers, frankenfoods and bad news all threaten our health…but we can’t go around living in fear. Neptune in Pisces goes with the flow. It is the realm of the spiritual master in us that understands all is maya (illusion). Ultimately, we can’t control anything and must learn to let go of ourselves and everything else. Still, we do have to live inside the illusion for now, which is why Pisces and Virgo say, “walk the mystical path with practical feet” ! Do what is within your own ability and let the Gods handle the rest. The whole point of this exercise is not to try and lengthen your lifespan or lose weight or find the fountain of youth (although these may be side bonuses), but to prepare you for a rebirth within this lifetime, as your beautiful, authentic self.

Lady in the pool is the great Esther Williams, Hollywood’s own mermaid.

All written content herein ©copyright Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be re-used without permission. Please share via link only. Thanks!